Phone hacking: James Murdoch questioned by MPs - Thursday 10 November

• James Murdoch says wider evidence of phone hacking at News of the World was not given to him by Colin Myler and Tom Crone in May 2008
• Murdoch stated he has never seen the 'for Neville' email
• He described Myler and Crone's testimony as 'misleading'
• Crone has issued a statement describing Murdoch's evidence as 'disingenuous at best', while Myler has said he stands by his account
• Murdoch described Tom Watson MP's line of questioning about the mafia as 'offensive'
• He said the use of an investigator to spy on hacking victims' lawyers was 'appalling'
• Murdoch said he could not rule out closing the Sun were it to be proved that phone hacking took place at the paper

He will take his seat for what is likely to be a bruising experience at 11am and we will be covering it live.

It will be the stiffest test of the 38-year-old's career – he will be grilled by MPs on apparent discrepancies in evidence he gave on phone hacking when he first appeared before the culture, media and sport select committee in July.

The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh says it is make or break for the heir apparent to his family's media empire – if it is proved that he misled anyone, his chances of taking over News Corporation will be under threat.

The main focus of MPs questioning will be the "for Neville" email that proved phone hacking went beyond one "rogue reporter", a line that News International maintained until late 2010.

10.03am: Here's a roundup of what the papers say about Murdoch's appearance before MPs:

The Independent says he is being prepped by Jeremy Sandelson, head of litigation at law firm Clifford Chance for an "assault on credibility".

The Financial Times says Murdoch is fighting for his future. It says he will tell MPs that he "has been serious about improving the ethics of News International and consistent in saying that he was not shown incriminating documents".

The Times says Murdoch will tell MPs he was not aware that phone hacking had spread.

Late, late night playing Portal 2. Early, early morning drafting questions and listening to The Clash on full blast.

10.14am: With me on the live blog this morning and tweeting is my colleague Josh Halliday. Down at Portcullis House at the select committee is James Robinson, while media editor Dan Sabbagh is on hand for instant analysis as the morning develops.

10.14am: The House of Commons have upped the security this time to ensure there is no repeat of July's foam pie incident when a member of the public tried to attack Rupert Murdoch with a plate of shaving foam.

"No bags are allowed this time, unless you are a member of the press" reports the Guardian's James Robinson from Portcullis House.

It's first-come-first-served and about 30 members of the public and press have assembled for the hearing.

The "for Neville" email was important for two reasons: it was a transcript and evidence, sufficient evidence for the company that the company would lose the case [taken by Gordon Taylor for phone hacking.

The second part was the it was for Neville. It as not described to me as the "for Neville" email. I want to make it very clear that this was the case.

11.04am: Chairman John Whittingdale is now asking him about counsel opinion that suggested phone hacking was more widespread.

He says the Farrer note that suggests he might have been aware of that meeting is only a note of a telephone conversation. He does not recall that meeting but accepts it might have happened.

11.06am: Murdoch is now talking about former chief executive Les Hinton.

He says Hinton did not discuss anything about the settlement with former royal editor Clive Goodman who was jailed for phone-hacking offences.

"It was some time before I had joined...the arrests were well over a year, a year and a half before."

11.08am:Murdoch says Hinton was responsible for the Goodman settlement:

It was seen as a matter in the past, accountability had been delivered...there was no prompt or reason to revisit a settlement matter that was well within Mr Hinton's authority to make a judgment on.

11.09am: The Rupert Murdoch moment - James says he is 'humbled' by the revelations over phone hacking.

I have had some time to reflect on this events. I think the whole company is humbled by this.

What I'm trying to do is learn from the events over the last number of years, try to understand why the company couldn't come to grips with the issues in as fast a way as I would have liked

We are all humbled by it ... it is something that we are very sorry about.

11.13am: Murdoch says there was no "willful blindness" at the company.

11.13am: James Murdoch appears to be apportioning blame for his ignorance of alleged illegal activity.

After the resignation of Coulson, Hinton brought Myler in to bring the newspaper forward and if he had known that there was wider spread criminality I think he should have told me.

11.16am: Adrian Sanders is asking who should have reported alleged illegal activity to Murdoch. Again the former editor of the News of the World is being targetted.

This was the job of the new editor who had come in to clean this up to make me aware of those things.

11.17am:Murdoch is maintaining his line that management beneath him were responsible.

Senior management rely on executives to behave in a certain way. We have to rely on those executives, otherwise it's impossible to manage every single detail in a company of this scale.

11.19am: Tom Watson is now asking about an internal memo which says the company has uncovered evidence that is potential "fatal" in its defence against a phone hacking action by Gordon Taylor.

Mr Crone did use those words around the evidence being 'fatal to our case unquote, but at no point in that memo was it mentioned - Mr Thurlbeck for example...

It did not discuss those crucial elements of widespread criminality and did not mention those individuals involved.

11.25am: Murdoch denies that he misled the committee about meetings discussing the 'for Neville' email. He sticks by his evidence that the only meeting at which he discussed the settlement with Gordon Taylor. That meeting was not to discuss the 'for Neville' emai..

The only substantive meeting on this subject was on June 10 with Mr Crone and Mr Myler . It was discuss the case. It was in order for them to increase they offer they had already made.

11.27am:Murdoch says he has testified very consistently about his knowledge of wider-spread phone hacking and has not misled the committee about any meetings prior to the one on 10 June.

Neither Mr Myler or I recall a conversation on 27th May. Mr Silverleaf's opinion was not discussed ... nor was any evidence of wider phone hacking.

That is what I have testified in writing and in person to this committee over the last number of months.

11.31am: Murdoch has just accused the former editor of the News of the World Colin Myler and the paper's former legal chief Tom Crone of misleading the committee.

Here's the exchange between Tom Watson and Murdoch:

TW: Did you mislead this committee?

JM: No I did not

TW: If you didn't who did?

JM I believe his committee was given [evidence] by people without full possession of the facts or...it was economical. My own testimony has been consistent. I testify to this committee with as much clarity and transparency as I can.

TW: Was it Mr Crone [who misled the committee?]JM: I thought it was inconsistent and ...

TW: So you agree he misled the committeeJM: It follows that I do. I believe their testimony was misleading and I dispute it.

11.38am: Watson is asking about a handwritten note of a conversation between Farrer partner Julian Pike and Myler. In the note, Pike writes: "James wld say get rid of them - cut out the cancer".

What does this mean? asks Watson.

I would have said get rid of them all, I would have said cut out the cancer. That is the way I would have approached it. That speaks volumes and is also why perhaps I was given a narrower set of facts than I would have liked in the June 10th meeting a week and a half later.

Again, Murdoch says he was told about the "for Neville" email but not that it was evidence of wider phone hacking. It was discussed, he said, because it was evidence that there were transcripts which proved the News of the World had commissioned the recording of Gordon Taylor's voicemail messages.

He says that in 2007 the case Gordon Taylor was bringing against News of the World was "so weak it ought to be struck out yet a year later you are settling for £750,000. Did you question why this was the case?"

Murdoch replies:

It was described briefly to me that there was evidence - the transcripts were on behalf of the News of the World; that it was important to close the case;... it was seen more of the end of something that had gone on before rather than the beginning of something

11.59am: Collins asks whether reputational risk to the company was discussed during conversations about the settlement with Taylor.

"I don't recall, other than it was seen as dragging up matters from the past," says Murdoch.

12.01pm: Collins is now trying to goad Murdoch: Is the way company's deal with big money settlements, he asks.

"Is it 'we've got to pay out this money, and rather than asking why, you say ok.?" asks Collins.

"No, Mr Collins, reasons were given to me, evidence was given to me, not evidence of wider phone hacking," says Murdoch.

12.03pm: You never considered any other option than settling at the level Mr Crone recommended? asks Watson.

"I recall leaving that meeting with the clear sense that they would go and do that," says Murdoch.

12.04pm: Murdoch is being asked about Colin Myler's recollection of 'let's wait for the silk's view'?

Again Murdoch stresses that this is a note of someone else's conversation and that there is no record of any meeting in which he said this to Myler.

"I don't have a recollection of a conversation about waiting for the silk's view," he says.

Mr Crone and Mr Myler had attempted to settle this case a number of times above the level they were authorised, he adds.

"Mr Crone took it upon himself to authorise a settlement of £50,000 or £100,000 or I did not authorise that," says Murdoch, nor did he authorise any further higher settlement offers.

Murdoch says the company has "looked quite hard" to find records of who may have authorised Crone to spend this kind of money and they couldn't find any.

12.14pm: Davies says he has difficulty understanding why Murdoch had such a 'cavalier' approach to spending so much of the company's money on the Taylor settlement.

"You seem to characterise your sort of defence - 'well this is the News of the World, this is a tiny part of business, we can't be bothered with this,'" says Davies.

12.16pm: Here is a transcript of that show-stopping earlier exchange between Watson and Murdoch in which the Labour MP revealed he had met Neville Thurlbeck to discuss what had happened at the News of the World.

Tom Watson:

Thurlbeck: I looked at it (the Neville email), no Tom, I never received it, I don't know. I'm looking at it and saying that surely somebody must have asked X to do this, X was asked to do so many of these by the newsdesk at the time.

So Tom comes to me and I tell him I had nothing to do with it. He tells me that it's gone through X in the office, so clearly News International are culpable, and I'm going to have to show this to James Murdoch.

He said is there any way we can get round this? And he says to me, Nev, I'm sorry I've got to show him this. I said Tom, I'm going to lose my job; he said not necessarily.

This is not some vague memory, I was absolutely on a knife edge. Tom took it to him. The following week I said "did you show him the email?" He said "yes I did". Now he can't remember whether he showed it to Mr Murdoch or not. He said "it's alright, it's fine, it's settled.

James Murdoch

Mr Watson, I really can't say what Mr Crone and Mr Thurlbeck may have discussed and happy to see that and deal with that, but my recollection is very clear - I remember what I was told at the time and I was not told at the time.

12.26pm: Davies asks whether Murdoch feels he has failed to supervise his company properly.

" Have you as a result of this, do you know run things differently. Do you have a more hands on approach. Do you see this really is a pretty lax [way of management]?"

Murdoch replies:

"It is a huge focus for the company and to get to the bottom of this issue; to cooperate with the police and this inquiry ... and crucially as well to learn the lessons from this episode."

12.28pm: Paul Farrelly is now quizzing Murdoch about notes of a phone conversation with Myler taken by Farrer lawyer Julian Pike in May 2008.

Again Murdoch is distancing himself from this alleged meeting.

"This is a second hand conversation about a meeting neither Mr Myler or I can recall."

12.31pm: Who was de facto chief executive before Rebekah Brooks was appointed? asks Farrelly.

"We had an executive group", says Murdoch before agreeing he acted as executive chairman even if he hadn't had the title at the time.

12.32pm: Farrelly says he is perplexed by Murdoch's decision to pay out so much money to Gordon Taylor, particularly as it "substantially" more than the company's own QC had recommended.

"The one thing that shows us and any 10-year-old that the NoW world did not stack up that GT was not a royal or a member of the royal household," asks Farrelly.

Did Murdoch not ask "how come this man [Mulcaire] had hacked this phone when he [Taylor] is not royal?" he adds.

Did you not ask "Who the hell else had Mulcaire been hacking?"

12.36pm: Murdoch responds by saying he had not reason to believe anything further was afoot.

"The police had said there isn't anything more here and they had shut the investigation," said Murdoch.

Farrelly then raises a chuckle when he says Murdoch's father Rupert would have been more robust in his response to anyone asking would he pay out more than £500,000 to someone he had hardly heard of [Taylor].

"You see, I have this growling Australian accent in my head saying 'and how much more are we going to pay?" says Farrelly.

12.38pm: Do you remember where you were when the Guardian produced that story in 2009 revealing there were thousands of victims of phone hacking?

Murdoch replies:

When the newspaper allegations were made I was in the US, I believe I was in Idaho at a business conference.

Do you remember what your reaction was?

My reaction was to understand whether or not it was true there were further allegations. I received a telephone call from the UK. I received a copy of the article.

The answer came back very strongly. investigations had been made; inquiries had been made; previous investigations had been made and there was no new evidence at all.

It was only 24 hours after the allegations in the summer of 2009 emerged, that the Metropolitan police released a statement that there was no new evidence.

12.44pm: Murdoch is firmly holding his line that Crone and Myler kept him in the dark regarding wider criminality at News of the World.

12.50pm: Murdoch admits News International took too long to deal with the crisis and dealing with 'perceived attacks' from outside the company.

12.51pm: He is asked who is telling the truth? Crone and Myler or James Murdoch?

Murdoch says their testimony, on scrutiny, is full of "supposition" and he is clear that they never showed him the For Neville email or "discussed with me the significance of that Queen's Counsel opinion" which said there was "overwhelming evidence" that several journalists were illegally accessing voicemails.

"It's for this committee to decide the quality of the evidence it is receiving," Murdoch says.

12.54pm: Louise Mensch apologises that she has to leave immediately after her questions to collect her children which she says are the same ages as Murdoch's.

She asks how many journalists were involved and whether any other papers were involved.

Murdoch says he cannot answer as there is an investigation under way.

However he adds: "As you know, a journalist at the Sun was arrested quite recently which is a matter of concern."

12.56pm: Murdoch says he has no knowledge that any of the victims of 9/11 had their phones hacked.

"So far you are coming up empty," says Mensch.

1.00pm: Murdoch condemns the covert surveillance operation on Prince William and more than 100 celebrities and public figures.

It is appalling, it is something I would never condone, the company should never condone, something that should never have happened and was shocking when I found out ... it is not something that has a place in the way that we operate.

1.02pm: Mensch asks Murdoch to guarantee that the company "publicise every nefarious practice that has happened in this company before the Guardian or others or Newsnight expose it."

1.04pm: Murdoch dodges that question, instead offering a lengthy run through of the company's corporate governance systems.

1.05pm: Watson is now asking about the private investigator Jonathan Rees who worked for News of the World in the past.

Murdoch says he will check the company's records on his arrangements with the company and come back to the committee.

He is asked about other private investigators, John Ross, a Barry Beardall and an Alex Leighton.

Murdoch says he had not heard of John Ross before and says he will come back to Watson on the details.

1.10pm: Watson now asks him about Operation Tuleta (the Met's inquiry into allegations of allegations of computer hacking) – Murdoch cannot help him here or either.

1.13pm: Watson lands another punch - he says he has information that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks tried to "smear" him by telling Tony Blair he was "mad" and needed to be taken off the committee's inquiry in 2009.

He reveals that he has had been told by an anonymous source that there was a "diktat" at News of the World "to dig up as much information about the members of the select committee".

The source claimed that Rebekah Brooks had confided to him that she viewed Watson as "absolutely pathological".

The sources added: "She tried to smear you as being mad. She was saying to Blair, 'You've got to call this many off, he's saying he's mad.'"

Murdoch says he has "no knowledge" of any of this.

1.21pm: Murdoch has refused to rule out closing the Sun if it emerged journalists engaged in illegal activities.

Labour MP Steve Rotheram asks Murdoch if he is "aware that the words 'the Sun' appeared in the file of Glenn Mulcaire", the private investigator employed by News of the World.

SR: If it's revealed that the Sun does appear in the Mulcaire file, will you close the paper like you did the News of the World?

JM: I think it's important not to prejudge the outcome of any of the investigations.

JM I don't think we can rule [out] any corporate reaction to behaviour or wrongdoing.

"I was not involved. I was informed of them [the discussion], but in very general terms," says Murdoch.

Farrelly says: "But you were the chairman, were you consulted at all?"

Rebekah Brooks was responsible for this matter, says Murdoch.

"Mrs Brooks did discuss the settlement with Mr Clifford which was a commercial arrangement I think for services for the future, but not in any great detail at all," he adds. "[As] chief executive of the business she could make those decisions."

Paul Farrelly questions why no concerns were raised given that the sum was so large.

Did you not think, "Clifford – he's not a member of the royal family either?" says Farrelly.

Murdoch, who oversees the now defunct News of the World's publisher News International as deputy chief operating officer, told MPs that Crone and Myler had mislead parliament with their testimony in the summer.

Crone, the former head of legal at the Sunday redtop, said in a written letter to the committee earlier this week that recently published emails appear to show that Murdoch knew about the "for Neville" email in May 2008 – more than two years before he maintains he was told about widespread hacking at the paper.

"After the resignation of [former News of the World editor Andy] Coulson, [former News International chairman Les] Hinton brought Myler in to clean things up and bring newspaper forward," Murdoch told MPs. "If he had known that there was wider spread criminality I think he should have told me."

He later insisted that Myler and Crone did not "discuss elements of widespread criminality" with him in the 2008 meetings. He added that previous evidence given to the committee by Crone and Myler was "inconsistent and not right".

[Met commissioner Bernard] Hogan-Howe would not comment on the contents of the interim report, which has been written by Durham police's chief constable, John Stoddard. But it is understood that the report recommends that the Weeting team be expanded with more staff and more officers.

The team began with 45 detectives, there are now 118 working on the hacking investigation and two associated inquiries into alleged illegal payments to police officers as well as alleged hacking of emails. "The scale of the task is pretty large," said Hogan-Howe.

The News Corp boss told MPs that it was important not to prejudge the outcome of any investigations, but that he was not ruling anything out – including shutting down the UK's largest-selling newspaper.

Asked by Steve Rotherham MP whether he would close the paper if evidence of hacking emerges, Murdoch said: "I don't think we can rule out any corporate reaction to behaviour or wrongdoing."

Rotherham claimed that the words "the Sun" appeared in notes seized from the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

It was James Murdoch who reportedly took the decision to close the News of the World when the Milly Dowler claims were made public by the Guardian in July.

Jamie Pyatt became the first Sun journalist to be arrested since allegations of phone hacking and payments to police officers at News International emerged. The home counties editor was arrested on Friday in connection with the investigation payments made to police officers.

In his second evidence session before the culture, media and sport select committee, Murdoch told MPs that the arrest of Pyatt was a matter of great concern.

He said that the use of private investigators at News International had been all but banned throughout the newspaper group in new corporate guidelines.

Journalists must now seek the permission of both the newspaper editor and the chief executive of News International, Tom Mockridge, before contracting a private investigator.

Earlier this week, the Sun editor Dominic Mohan addressed staff following apparent discontent among the newspaper's senior reporters about the future of the title.

Mohan told journalists at the Sun on Tuesday that Rupert Murdoch was up for the fight for the paper's future.

2.32pm:Mark Lewis, one of the two lawyers who were allegedly tailed as part of a News International covert surveillance operation, says James Murdoch's apology is not good enough.

He said James Murdoch was "in charge" when the private investigator was trying to dig dirt on him in 2010.

"Those are hollow words," he said, until "we know exactly what people were doing and who's going to take responsibility".

News of the World's private eye Derek Webb covertly followed Lewis and also filmed members of his family – including his teenage daughter – on a shopping trip.

Lewis told Sky News: "There were groans of it being mafia-like, but as far as I'm concerned, as far as my family are concerned, it's very like the mafia. If there were groans, they are probably from the mafia saying 'we're not as bad as that'."

2.46pm:James Murdoch should "fall on his sword," says Jack Irvine, a former News International executive.

He told Sky News that Murdoch's testimony was proof that he wasn't competent to run the company.

"One of my old Sun colleagues was saying he wished Murdoch had been in charge when he was there so he could stroll in and ask him sign a cheque for £300,000 and not ask what it was for," say Irvine.

"Even if you accept that he didn't know [about the reasons for the £700,000-plus settlement with Gordon Taylor], he should have known.

Irvine added that it was perplexing that Murdoch didn't know whether he was executive chairman or chairman during the period of negotiation with Taylor.

2.56pm: Sun staff feel "threatened and demoralised" by a "witch hunt" being conducted at News International, says a executive at the publishing company.

Jack Irvine, former editor of the Scottish Sun and managing director of News International in Scotland said "there seems to be a witch hunt at the Sun run by a former Daily Telegraph executive" who didn't know how tabloids operated.

He said one reporter was confronted after spending £11 or £12 on a drink for a policeman. "He was asked did you give him the money or did you buy him the drink? The reporter turned round and said you don't think a policeman is going to put his career on the line for £11 or £12. That's how ridiculous it has become.

"The Sun boys are feeling very threatened and demoralised by all of this," Irvine told Sky News.

3.13pm:Roy Greenslade has published a blogpost asking "Can you really believe James Murdoch's hacking story?". He analyses Murdoch's responses to MPs' questioning, saying the News Corp boss was attempting to put "clear blue water" between himself and Tom Crone. Greenslade concludes:

...though the headlines may well be devoted to Tom Watson's jibe about Murdoch acting like a mafia boss (early examples here and here and here) it paled beside the Asda moment raised by Philip Davies.

After explaining that he used to work for the supermarket chain (owned by the giant US company, Walmart) Davies registered his incredulity that Murdoch could have authorised the payment of more than £500,000 (to Taylor) without inquiring deeply into the reasons.

"It all seems so cavalier to me," said Davies. "You agree to settle cases with no real cap but a ballpark figure. You agree that a company should have a legal opinion, but you don't even ask to see the opinion when it is written."

And there, in a couple of sentences, is surely the puncturing of the Murdoch defence. What kind of company boss is that fails to show any curiosity about a massive payment in controversial circumstances? A deceitful one or an incompetent one?

• James Murdoch has accused the News of the World's former editor Colin Myler and senior lawyer Tom Crone of not telling him about suggestions of wider phone hacking at the newspaper in 2008. Murdoch insisted that the context of the "for Neville" email was withheld from him by Colin Myler and Tom Crone when they discussed the payout to PFA boss Gordon Taylor in June 2008.

• Tom Watson MP surprised Murdoch by saying he had met NoW reporter Neville Thurlbeck on Thursday morning to discuss what had happened at the News of the World. Thurlbeck told the MP that he had asked Crone about the "for Neville" email and the reporter told him that the lawyer had said he had shown it to the News Corp boss.

• Murdoch said he found Tom Watson MP's line of questioning about the mafia "offensive". Watson then accused the News Corp executive of being "the first mafia boss in history" who did not know what was going on in his organisation

• Murdoch refused to rule out closure of the Sun were it to be proved that phone hacking took place at the paper. He told MPs that it was important not to prejudge the outcome of any investigations, but that he was not ruling anything out – including shutting down the UK's biggest-selling newspaper.

James Murdoch survived today's select committee hearing – but not without damage to his reputation. The News Corp heir apparent was consistent in his evidence; he was not tripped up and there can be no suggestion that he misled parliament.

Indeed at times Murdoch – known for a fissile temperament – was extraordinarily cool under fire, conceding even that his company had been too quick to see rival newspapers' reporting of phone hacking as motivated by commercial rivalry rather than legitimate inquiry.

He concludes:

No doubt James Murdoch is sure of his position, but the response from Myler and Crone will now be critical, as their relationship is at the heart of this "who knew what, when" saga.

Above all, Murdoch had to concede how little he knew about the reasons for the £700,000 Gordon Taylor settlement in 2008 – and even the £1m settlement deal with Max Clifford in 2010. He was, as MP Paul Farrelly repeatedly said, "incurious" about what went on at his company.

Murdoch was aware, for example, that the opinion of a QC had been sought as regards whether to pay out to Taylor, but said he did not read the document – and nor, he added, were the most pertinent parts of it brought to his attention. That, of course, was the legal opinion that said there was "a culture of illegal information access at the News of the World".

Watson tried to sum up the state of affairs with an over-the-top attempt to compare News Corporation to a mafia organisation. No doubt that exchange will be played again and again on news clips in the years to come. But it was not the crucial quote. That came from Damian Collins: "It may not be the mafia, but it was not Management Today."

Not an ideal verdict for a man who is lined up to one day succeed his father as chief executive of the world's most powerful media company, the $29bn News Corporation.

It is regrettable, but I can perfectly understand why James Murdoch felt the need to discredit Colin Myler and myself.

"The simple truth is that he was told by us in 2008 about the damning email and what it meant in terms of wider News of the World involvement.

"It seems he now accepts he was told of the email, of the fact that it contained transcripts of voicemail interceptions and that those interceptions were authorised by the News of the World.

"Perhaps Mr Murdoch could explain who he thought was doing the authorising at the News of the World?

"At best, his evidence on this matter was disingenuous.

"For the record, I did not 'mislead the committee' about the evidence being confined to a 'single rogue reporter'. If anyone cares to read the full answer I gave to Q1339 during the 2009 evidence to the CMS select committee, they will see that I clearly accepted the 'for Neville' email meant 'that the problem of accessing by our reporters, or complicity of accessing by our reporters, went beyond the Goodman/Mulcaire situation'.

I have told the police that while I fully understand and respect the reason for their request for me to give evidence for the crown in return for possible immunity, it is my opinion that a detailed and forensic inquiry into my working methods will fully exonerate me. On that basis, I will not be giving evidence for the crown.

I have compiled my own dossier in my defence.

The News of the World suppressed this dossier which led to two years of lingering suspicion which resulted in my arrest. And by depriving News International of the dossier which cleared my name and incriminated others, it led to my unfair dismissal.

I was dismissed because I was erroneously named by Glenn Mulcaire as a person who had authorised him to hack the phones of an individual, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

However, he did this in order to protect the real individual on the paper, his very good friend of many years standing.

This will be resolved. As I have said before, the truth will out. My anger is not with News International but with the News of the World. And I will fight all the way to the High Court to clear my name.

Finally, this dossier was not compiled to implicate others in a criminal inquiry. It was compiled to clear my name with News International.

7.39pm: This is David Batty, I'm taking over the live blog for the rest of the evening. You can follow me on Twitter @David_Batty.

7.40pm: Neville Thurlbeck says a dossier he compiled to clear his name would be "good news" for James Murdoch.

It will be good news in a way I think because it will back up his claim that he has been seriously misled by senior executives on the News of the World.

But it will be bad news in the sense it will prove my case for unfair dismissal and will certainly cost News International the redundancy money which they owe me.

Part of the dossier, which includes recordings, is held by police and the rest is with his lawyers, he told Channel 4 News.

Sienna Miller claimed at the high court in April that her email account had been illegally accessed. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images

My colleagues Amelia Hill and Nick Davies reveal:

In a pre-trial hearing in the high court in April, the actor Sienna Miller made a number of allegations against the now defunct NoW, including the claim that her email account had been illegally accessed and her private emails opened. (...) The newspaper settled with Miller over her phone-hacking allegations in May and paid £100,000 in a Part 36 offer, which prevented her making further claims.

But although it never explicitly commented on Miller's claims of email hacking, the NoW's barrister, Michael Silverleaf QC, admitted at a later hearing: "We admit that we are liable for all the wrongs that are alleged to have been acted."

He added that the newspaper "admits in terms that the acts were committed and they were committed on instructions from journalists employed by my client".

This means James Murdoch was mistaken when he told MPs today that he did not believe News International had, to date, admitted liability for any kind of computer or email hacking.

• James Murdoch has accused the News of the World's former editor Colin Myler and senior lawyer Tom Crone of not telling him about suggestions of wider phone hacking at the newspaper in 2008. Murdoch insisted that the context of the "for Neville" email was withheld from him by Colin Myler and Tom Crone when they discussed the payout to PFA boss Gordon Taylor in June 2008.

• Tom Crone and Colin Myler hit back at James Murdoch, disputing his evidence to the committee. Crone issued a statement saying they both told Murdoch in 2008 about the "for Neville" email, adding: "At best, his evidence on this matter was disingenuous."

• Tom Watson MP surprised Murdoch by saying he had met NoW reporter Neville Thurlbeck on Thursday morning to discuss what had happened at the News of the World. Thurlbeck told the MP that he had asked Crone about the "for Neville" email and the reporter told him that the lawyer had said he had shown it to the News Corp boss.

• But Thurlbeck subsequently appeared to dispute Watson's account. He said a dossier he had compiled to clear his name would be "good news" for James Murdoch, as it would show that he had been "seriously misled" by senior NoW executives.

• Murdoch said he found Tom Watson MP's line of questioning about the mafia "offensive". Watson then accused the News Corp executive of being "the first mafia boss in history" who did not know what was going on in his organisation

• Murdoch refused to rule out closure of the Sun were it to be proved that phone hacking took place at the paper. He told MPs that it was important not to prejudge the outcome of any investigations, but that he was not ruling anything out – including shutting down the UK's biggest-selling newspaper.

• The Guardian has uncovered evidence proving that James Murdoch was mistaken when he told MPs that he did not believe News International had, to date, admitted liability for any kind of computer or email hacking.